


In The Closet

by kethni



Category: Veep (TV)
Genre: Existing Relationship, F/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 14:18:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11784909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kethni/pseuds/kethni
Summary: ‘People should be careful screwing on the company dime,’ he said.





	In The Closet

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to Intronerd for the request!

 

**_Ben_ **

 

Ben was breathing heavily as he walked along a corridor. Two flights of stairs was three flights more than he was comfortable with. Up ahead he could see the Secret Service outside Selina’s door, along with some shambling teddy-bear looking asshole.

‘Oh, hello Mr Cafferty! I didn’t know that you were coming, the vice president is in her hotel room.’

Ben staggered to a halt. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘Richard Splett. I’m accompanying Vice President –’

‘Shut the fuck up, move aside, and go fetch me a coffee.’

Richard nodded. ‘Uh-huh. Okay. How do you take it?’

Ben thumped on the door. ‘Black with two sugars and three shots.’

Richard was looking for his notepad. ‘Of coffee? Or of flavoured syrup? Maybe hazelnut or –’

‘Vodka,’ Ben said. ‘Three shots of vodka.’

‘Okay,’ Richard said. ‘I... I will try to do that.’

Selina’s door opened by a tiny fraction.

‘Shoo!’ Ben said to Richard. He turned back to the door. ‘Hey, Ma’am.’

The door opened enough for him to see her face. Her hair was a mess and her lipstick was smeared. She was also wrapped in a robe.

‘Oh, hi, Ben,’ she said a little loudly. ‘What... whatcha doing?’

‘I’m on my way to the funeral,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d stop by and say hello. Did I wake you up?’

‘Yes, yes you did.’

‘Well, can I come in?’ Ben asked. ‘Your coffee jockey is making me a Russian peasant breakfast.’ He grinned. ‘A coffee with lots of vodka.’

Selina forced a laugh. ‘Yeah it’s... it’s funny when you have to explain the joke. Uh, can you give me two minutes to pull some clothes on?’

‘Sure,’ Ben said with shrug.

‘Great!’

Ben swung his arms as he waited. There was a crap load of banging and thumping from the bedroom. He was about to knock and check that she was okay, when Richard came burbling along the corridor.

‘There you are Mr Cafferty. That’s your coffee. Although at this point it’s more like coffee-flavoured vodka.’

Ben scowled. ‘There’s three drinks here.’

‘Yes Sir, that’s for you and the vice president and –’

‘You’re local, right kid?’ Ben asked.

‘Yes, I’m very honoured to have this opportunity to –’

‘You’re junior staff. The lowest of the low. You don’t get to share a coffee with the vice president and the president’s chief of staff, clear?’

Selina opened the door just as Richard was blathering something to which Ben wasn’t paying attention. He just took the tray from the boy and walked into Selina’s room.

It looked like she’d lost a fight with a very small tornado. The chair was overturned, her clothes were all across the floor, and there were hangers on the floor by the closet.

‘I don’t know what I interrupted, Ma’am, but it looks like it was a lot of fun,’ he said, trying to straighten the chair. As soon as he lifted it he realised that it was snapped in two just above the seat.

‘You have no idea,’ Selina said. She took the tray of drinks and then didn’t seem to know what to do with it.

‘Can you believe that Richard kid?’ Ben asked taking the two coffees. ‘He got himself a drink.’

Selina grabbed her tea. ‘Right! That is... That is the problem with these little Podunk places. You can’t get the staff.’

‘Or the furniture. This chair looks like an elephant and a hippo tried to use it for sex.’

Selina laughed too long and too loudly. Ben wondered if he was the only one with alcohol in his beverage.

‘Were you napping?’ Ben said, sitting down on the bed. He gestured at the devastated covers and haphazardly strewn pillows. ‘Bad dreams, huh?’

She smiled too brightly. ‘Something like that.’

***

**_Selina_ **

She needed to pee so badly it was unreal. But she couldn’t go in the bathroom in case Ben started poking around. She sat down on the end of the bed, the other side from Ben, and idly picked up one of her books.

He was looking at something by the headboard. She’d always wondered if that whole “light bulb” moment on cartoons was bullshit. Now she knew, because looked exactly like he’d had a revelation.

He looked at the door. The bedroom door, not the closet door, thank fuck.

‘Everything’s quiet at the West Wing, huh?’ Selina prompted.

‘Yeah, it’s dead,’ Ben said casually. ‘Kent’s off for a few days so I don’t even have him to talk to.’

‘Or torment,’ Selina said without thinking.

‘That part is more fun,’ Ben agreed.

‘Why do you do that?’ Selina asked. ‘He’s not exactly Jonah.’

Ben shrugged. ‘I guess I don’t mind telling you. You remember my second wife, Joanne?’

She couldn’t, but she nodded.

‘Well, it was a nasty divorce. A divorce I didn’t want.’

Selina snorted. ‘Well then maybe you shouldn’t have screwed around.’

‘One time,’ Ben protested. ‘When I feeling low and I was drunk. I fessed up and she booted me out.’

Selina squirmed as her bladder protested. ‘What does this have to do with Kent? Did you cheat on her with him?’

Ben grimaced. ‘I hope I’m never that desperate. I guess Joanne was because they shacked up. Kent knew how cut up about it I was, and he fucked her anyway.’

Selina threw a pillow at him. ‘That was fucking years ago! You’re remarried. You’ve probably had affairs since... why’re you looking over there?’

He waved his hand. ‘I thought I heard something.’

‘It’s a _hotel_ , Ben, you probably heard the people in the next room fucking,’ Selina said.

***

**_Ben_ **

He knew it. Her knew from the waver in her voice. He’d known the moment he’d seen the condoms on the bedside table.

‘People should be careful screwing on the company dime,’ he said.

Selina went very still. ‘Nobody said they were doing that.’

‘C’mon. The only people porking in a hotel in the middle of the morning are assholes having affairs. Probably with a secretary or an aide.’ He pointed a thick finger at Selina. ‘That way madness lies. Take it from Uncle Ben.’

She wasn’t as surprised as he thought she’d be. Just kind of irritated.

‘You’re sulking because your ex-wife dated another guy, ten years ago, and I’m supposed to take romantic advice from you, seriously?’

‘They moved in together,’ Ben protested. ‘When she died, I didn’t even get invited to the funeral.’

Selina’s mouth dropped open. ‘She died?’

‘Yeah, ovarian cancer. Real quick.’

There was a soft thump from the wall.

‘Jesus, they’re really going at it next door,’ Ben said.

Selina stood. ‘I need to pee.’

Ben looked at her blankly. ‘Okay.’

‘Go wait in the hall! I’m not doing it where you can hear.’

‘Oh. Gotcha. I’ll get another coffee. You want one?’

‘Yeah, yeah. Whatever,’ she said vaguely.

***

**_Richard_ **

Gosh, standing around in the hallway was more tiring then you’d think. He wondered how the secret service did it. They were on their feet all day. And they had guns. Sore feet and side arms. Seemed like a terrible combination, or a really terrible movie. But the secret service guys were all trained in VIP protection, and counterfeiting. Wait, no. Anti-counterfeiting? Counter-counterfeiting?

Mr Cafferty stepped through the door.

‘Still here, huh?’ he asked.

‘Yes sir. It’s an honour to serve the vice president in any all possible ways,’ Richard said.

Mr Cafferty said, ‘Not all the ways. Some of the fudging ways you can serve her are fudging dishonourable. You understand me, you smarmy sack of sugar?’

‘Not really, sir,’ Richard said.

‘That’s the vice president of the United fudging States of America and you are a piece of sugar from the apple end of fudging nowhere! If you ever tell anyone a single darn thing that you saw or heard then I will fudgingly come down on you like the wrath of almighty gobstopper. Am I clear, you little butterscotch?’

Richard thought about it. ‘Would you like a coffee, sir?’

* * *

**_Kent_ **

The door opened. He shielded his eyes from the relative luminosity. ‘You went to the bathroom first?’ he asked.

‘I needed to micturate!’ Selina snapped. ‘You could have exited when Ben left.’

‘You didn’t tell inform that he had,’ Kent said. He stretched, up into a sun salutation and then down to lay his hands flat on the floor.

‘Are you trying to arouse me?’ Selina said. ‘I think you may be successful.’

Kent scowled and removed an apple from the fruit bowl. ‘I am stiff after being confined to a closet.’

‘Don’t lose that thought,’ she said. ‘Ben is returning.’

Kent stared at her. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t fucking know,’ she said. ‘He won’t leave. Perhaps he knows you’re in there and he’s indulging in his dislike of you.’ She poked his chest. ‘Due to your cohabitation with his former-wife. You failed to tell me about that.’

Kent placed his hands on his waist. ‘Do you truly wish to have this conversation now?’

‘No, return to the closet,’ Selina said.

Kent strode to the bathroom. ‘There’s no room in there.’

‘There’s nowhere to hide in the bathroom,’ Selina hissed.

‘Then keep Ben out of the room.’

She threw a shoe at him as he walked into the bathroom.

‘Don’t make me come out there,’ he said, shutting the door.

‘Oh, you’d like that!’

He would, actually. He found the lying and hiding wearisome. Literally wearisome when it came to hiding in a closet. He had neither Jonah’s height nor Ben’s girth, but he was no Tom Thumb. What had been inconvenient when he got in the closet had rapidly become painful, in more ways than one.

Kent locked the bathroom door and sat against the bath with his legs braced against the bathroom door. He took a few breaths and centred himself. He might as well make the most of things. He leaned forward and wrapped his fingers under his feet, feeling the pleasing stretch of his muscles. It wasn’t painful, he was too limber and too experienced to make such a simple stretch painful. Then he realised that he was in his socks, which meant his shoes were in the bedroom.

He heard Ben lumber back into the room. If he saw Kent’s shoes, if he realised who they belonged to, now that could potentially be distinctly uncomfortable.

***

**_Ben_ **

‘How the fuck did you break the chair anyway?’ Ben asked.

‘Oh, you know,’ Selina said vaguely.

Ben was signing her books now and resisting the urge to write obscene comments. Okay, okay, the only reason he wasn’t insulting each reader one by one was because he didn’t want to give himself RSI.

‘Not really,’ he said. The only time I broke a chair it was because I was having screwing in it.’

She laughed too much. Fuck.

She’d boned that Richard kid in the chair, hadn’t she?

***

**_Selina_ **

She’d boned Kent in that chair. It had been great, right up until the chair fucking collapsed. Sat facing him, leaning way back, getting it done, and then they’d collapsed on the door with Kent howling like a wounded fucking animal.

‘What did you say?’ she asked Ben.

‘How’d the chair break?’

‘Oh.’ Selina swung her feet. ‘I was... I was swinging on it. You know, back and forth. It oh, it toppled over and just fucking… snapped.’ She snapped her fingers.

There was a crunch. A quiet crunch, sure, but a crunch all the same.

‘Did you hear that?’ Ben asked.

‘Nope,’ Selina said. ‘Didn’t hear anything. Not one thing.’

Kent was eating that stupid apple wasn’t he? She should’ve made him stay in the fucking closet.

Ben dropped the book he was holding and had to scramble around under the bed to find it.

He came back up holding a shoe. A man’s shoe.

Kent’s. You could’ve fit half Selina’s leg in that thing.

‘Jesus!’ Selina said. ‘You’d think they’d tidy up the room before letting the vice president into it.’

He fucking knew. Oh Christ, that human beanbag chair fucking _knew_.

Ben produced the other shoe and put them by the closet. ‘Yeah,’ he huffed. ‘It’s bad enough they left condoms by the bed without shoes underneath it.’

She looked. Fuck! But there were condoms there and he had seen them so... fuck.

‘It’s appalling how much standards have fallen,’ she said.

Ben heaved himself up, went to the door, opened it, looked out, and then returned. ‘Not that far.’

Selina shook her head. ‘You wanna give me that in English with captions for people who can’t read your mind?’

‘I thought you were banging your boy out there,’ Ben said. ‘But he’s wearing shoes.’

‘Richard?’ Selina asked, and started laughing. ‘You thought... oh God... Oh God that’s too funny.’

‘Yeah, laugh it up.’

‘Thanks, I will!’ she giggled.

Ben rolled his eyes. ‘I could look in the closet.’

‘Go for it.’ Selina waved a hand. ‘You think there’s somebody in there?’

Ben clasped his hands together. ‘Yes, Ma’am, I think there’s _someone_ in your closet. I think I heard them thumping around a couple times.’

Selina tried not to grin. ‘Go to it, Ben. Closet, ho.’

‘Yeah, right,’ he said, heaving himself to his feet. ‘I’ll let you get on Ma’am. I’m sure your “friend” is pretty fed up in there.’

‘No, no,’ she said, standing up and sauntering over to the closet. ‘I don’t have any secrets from you, Ben.’

He rubbed his face. ‘I’m supposed to say “no, no” am I?’

Selina threw open the closet door. ‘Come out, closet man.’

Ben frowned as he walked over to the closet and looked inside. ‘There’s nobody in there.’

‘I know!’ she said.

Ben gave her a wry smile. ‘Okay, Ma’am, you got me.’

‘Yeah, I did.’

***

**_Richard_ **

Richard was bringing a tray of food to the vice president when Mr Cafferty left the vice president’s hotel room.

‘What the fudge have you got there?’

‘It’s lunch,’ Richard said.

He peered at the tray. ‘This is for her, the sandwiches and little things?’

‘Yes, Sir!’

Mr Cafferty clucked his tongue. This other stuff is oh, they’re for...

‘The sashimi is for... oh hello Miss Meyer,’ Richard said.

Ben swivelled on his heel. ‘Hi Catherine.’

‘Hi.’ She peered at the food. ‘It this my mom’s lunch? There’s a _lot_ of food here.’

Ben cleared his throat. ‘She’s got a friend in with her.’

‘I don’t he’s a friend exactly,’ Richard said.

‘Oh, my gobstopper,’ Catherine said. ‘She’s in there having snuggles when she’s supposed to be signing books.’

‘Um...’

There was a loud, distinctly female gasp from the vice president’s room.

‘Gosh,’ Richard said. ‘Do you think she’s okay?’

‘Are you marzipan fudging kidding me right now?’ Mr Cafferty asked.

‘I think he’s serious,’ Miss Meyer said.

Mr Cafferty took the tray of sandwiches. ‘Waste not, want not.’

Miss Meyer looked surprised. ‘You’re going to each my mom’s lunch?’

There was a groan from the room.

‘You think she’s gonna notice?’ Mr Cafferty asked.

Miss Meyer went red. ‘Never mind. She’s clearly not going to be eating.’

‘Nothing anything out here anyway,’ Mr Cafferty said.

Miss Meyer grabbed the other plate of food. ‘Ew! I didn’t need to hear that.’

‘Oh,’ Richard said, as louder moans came from the room. ‘I… will go get some more sashimi for Mr Davison’s lunch.’

They looked at him.

‘Mr Davison?’ Mr Cafferty said.

 

The End

        


End file.
